The Right Spouse - by Isabelle Clark-Decès (Hardcover)

About the Book

The Right Spouse offers a description and an interpretation of preferential marriages with close kin in South India, as they used to be arranged and experienced in the recent past, one or two generations ago, and as they are increasingly discontinued in the present.

Book Synopsis

The Right Spouse offers a description and an interpretation of preferential marriages with close kin in South India, as they used to be arranged and experienced in the recent past, one or two generations ago, and as they are increasingly discontinued in the present.

Review Quotes

"Clark-Decès's work is a timely intervention as it forces the reader to revisit anthropological theories with a critical mind and appraise social change more intelligibly. This book will especially appeal to students and academics of anthropology, sociology, South Asian studies, and those with a specific interest in modernity and social change."--Parul Bhandari "Journal of Royal Anthropological Institute"

"The decline of preferential marriage among close kin is one of the most dramatic changes to have taken place in South India since the late twentieth century. The Right Spouse brilliantly combines ethnographic insight and theoretical analysis to make an invaluable addition to the long debate on the Dravidian kinship system."--Chris Fuller "London School of Economics"

"This beautifully written study on the 'emotional cosmology' of Tamil kinship (165) is an important contribution to the anthropology of kinship. It will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, South Asian studies, gender, and to anyone interested in what's going on in the marriage scene in India."--Haripriya Narasimhan "Pacific Affairs"

"This paradigm-shifting study reveals new dimensions of Dravidian kinship-in-action by documenting the fierce Tamil sense of matrimonial 'rights' and the tragic personal dilemmas that may arise from marriages between cross-cousins, maternal uncles, and nieces. This is an innovative and provocative book in every respect."--Dennis McGilvray, University of Colorado "Boulder"

"With her ethnography of kinship and marriage in periurban Tamil Nadu, India, Clark-Decès provides a next chapter in this history, a timely intervention into what is perhaps today an untimely topic . . . The Right Spouse is a must-read for anyone interested in Dravidian kinship, South India, and kinship studies more generally. It makes many needed interventions in the literature."--Constantine V. Nakassis "Journal of Anthropological Research"

About the Author

Isabelle Clark-Decès is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Program in South Asian Studies at Princeton University.